Grapes have been a part of human civilization since ancient times. They’re mentioned in biblical stories as “the fruit of the vine,” are featured in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and were treasured for winemaking in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.

Today, grapes are the sixth most popular fruit in the United States (after bananas, apples, watermelon, oranges and cantaloupe). Though there are thousands of different grape varieties, about 20 of them represent the majority of table grapes consumed.

Table Grapes Vs. Wine Grapes

Table grapes refer to those that are traditionally eaten as is, as a snack, in salads or entrees. Wine grapes are the varieties used to make wine, and there are also raisin grapes, which are primarily used to make the dried fruit.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

New research from Johns Hopkins University suggests that people with cheerful temperaments are significantly less likely to suffer heart attacks or similar coronary events.

Earlier research has shown that depressed and anxious people are more likely to have heart attacks and to die from them compared to those whose dispositions are brighter. This new research shows that a general sense of well-being – feeling cheerful, relax, energetic and satisfied with life – actually reduces the chances of a heart attack.

The lead author Lisa Yanek M.P.H. Is quoted as saying “If you are by nature a cheerful person and look on the bright side of things, you’re more likely to be protected from cardiac events.” She went on to say “A happier temperament has an actual effect on disease and you may be healthier as a result.”

The author emphasized that the mechanisms behind the protective effect of positive well-being remained unclear. I think most Integrative Doctors would agree with me that a positive attitude helps keep our neuro – immune system in a state of lower inflammation with a more healthy level of neurochemicals.

Further findings of the study were that patients with a positive well-being had a one third reduction in coronary events. And among those who were at a higher risk for a coronary event, but who kept a positive frame of mind, there was nearly a 50% reduction. These findings took into account other variables that were controlled for.

Source

Original Article

 

I am delighted my writers have written about Belly Fat in their first article this week, because it fits in with the newest findings about the problems with belly fat that I review here.

Yet another study, this time more sophisticated, has proven that individuals with excessive abdominal fat have a greater risk of heart disease and cancer than other people who carry their fat in other areas of the body, even though they have the same body mass Index. The hips and thighs are a less risky place to carry body fat.

This study was the first to use CT scans to specifically document and locate fat deposits in the body.

Abdominal fat typically indicates that there is fat around internal organs which was consistantly associated with heart disease and cancer in the study after adjusting for other risk factors.

Carolyn Fox M.D. senior author on the study is quoted as saying “Contrary to previously published studies comparing BMI and waist circumference, the presence of abdominal fat improved the ability to predict for cardiovascular disease, supporting the hypothesis that abdominal fat may partially underlie the association of body fat in heart disease and cancer.”

Maureen Talbot, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Part Foundation said “We already know that excess stomach fat increases your risk of developing heart disease but this research confirms there’s a greater risk even if you have a normal BMI.

This is just another motivator for all of us to keep our belly fat to a minimum.

Source 

Original Article 

The father no longer gets a free pass on fertility either!

It is obvious that exposures of the mother affect the fetus directly because the fetus lives in the mother for nine months. In addition we know the toxic metals, solvents, and pesticides are roused from their storage in the fat and given directly to the fetus during pregnancy.

I’ve been asked by my patients, appropriately so, if the father has any role in contributing toxins through his sperm to his fetus. I’ve mentioned to my patients that evidence is starting to gather that toxic exposure in the father affects the fetus.

Now in a new article published recently, it has been learned that gene mutations that are caused by the father’s lifestyle can be inherited by his children, even if those mutations occurred long before conception.

Furthermore this study showed that the mutations in the germ line (sperm) are present in all cells of the children including that child’s own germ cells (egg or sperm)!

This means that the father’s lifestyle has the potential to affect the DNA of multiple generations and not just his immediate offspring.

In particular, in this study, one of the main variables was whether the father smoked or not. The Editor in Chief of the FASEB Journal, where this article was published is quoted as saying “We’ve known for a very long time the preventive care among expectant mothers is critical to the health and well-being of their children. Now, we’re learning that fathers don’t get a free pass. How they take care of themselves – even before conception – affects the genetic makeup of their children for better or worse.”

This is the first study to be able to show that this germ line damage that occurs to a fathers DNA carries through into an unlimited number of generations.

These types of studies have been done already in mice with exposures to pesticides. They’ve shown the damage to the father’s sperm caused by pesticides persists through the germ line of at least five generations.

To me, this is most disturbing news, because it will affect the generations ahead. I would guess that these germ – line damages may be contributing to the epidemics of diabetes, asthma and perhaps even autism that we are seeing in our young generation.

Fathers! Take care of yourself and take care of your exposures before you have children!

(For my patients and readers who are familiar with the miasm theory in homeopathy, this article is starting to show the science behind miasms.)

Source

Original Article

Counterfeit drugs, which may contain no active ingredient, a wrong active ingredient or be contaminated, are a growing health threat in the United States and worldwide, says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Up to 10 percent of drugs worldwide are thought to be counterfeit, according to the FDA, while in some developing countries counterfeits may make up over 50 percent of the drug supply.

Increasingly, counterfeit drugs are being sold online, and the FDA recently issued a warning to consumers about 24 related Web sites that are reportedly selling counterfeit drugs. However, the Internet is not the only method used to sell counterfeits; fake drugs have also been obtained from reputable U.S. pharmacies.

Click here to read the rest of this article

In last week’s issue of this newsletter, I discussed the increasing link between the environment and Autism. I promised you more this week. In this issue I want to talk about pregnancy and how our toxic environment can affect it. In this case, it is in regards to infertility

Infertility is on the rise. It is estimated that as many as one in six couples seeking to have a child still have trouble after one year of trying.

People think this trend is attributable to just later marriage and deferred childbearing. However for a long time I’ve been talking to my young patients about how environmental toxins including phyto-estrogens, drug residues, pesticides and other bioactive compounds in personal care products are interfering with fertility.

I’m delighted to learn that a new book has been written that addresses this very subject. The title of the book is Be Fruitful: The Essential Guide to Maximizing Fertility and Giving Birth to a Healthy Child by Victoria Maizes M.D. who is the executive director of the University of Arizona Center for integrative medicine.

You can get her book here

and on Kindle here

A direct quote from the author sounds like just what I say to my patients. She said “Avoiding fruits and vegetables that have been sprayed with toxic pesticides, foods grown with GMO’s, and packaged foods containing ingredients that originate from GMO’s, and processed foods should be at the top of the list to do when trying to conceive.”

We know for example that organophosphates which are the type of pesticides used by the food industry on fruits and vegetables, are endocrine disruptors. One study has found the main compound of Roundup herbicide, glyphosate, is not only interfering with human reproductive function but also increasing the number of birth defects in vertebrates, contributing to stillbirths and miscarriages.

The author notes that “The direct effect of glyphosate on early mechanisms of morphogenesis in vertebrate embryos opens concerns about the clinical findings from human offspring in populations exposed to glyphosate-based herbicides in agricultural fields.”

In addition, over a decade ago, Canadian researchers published a study showing that exposure to this toxic herbicide increased the risk of spontaneous abortion among female agricultural workers who are exposed to glyphosate.

And yet glyphosate is just one of the 84,000 known toxins in our environment. Only a few thousand have been studied in regards to their effect on human biology.

Dr. Maizes agrees with my advice to my young patients who are wanting to have children “An organic diet is the best way to increase your ability to conceive. Eating organic grains, fruits, and vegetables, washing them with filtered water, and avoiding GMOs are very important factors in a person’s fertility.”

Dr. Maizes also advises that patients avoid low-fat foods because they are usually heavily processed and no longer “whole” foods.

In addition Dr. Amos Grunebaum, a gynecologist with over 30 years experience with high – risk pregnancies, had the following to say about environmental toxins: “There is now scientific evidence that environmental toxins such as pesticides and exogenous hormones are potentially interfering with fertility in the United States. Research shows that male and female reproductive health is especially susceptible to the impact of these chemicals.”

Dr. Grunebaum also recommends avoiding canned foods unless the can has a BPA – free liner. Phthalates and personal care products and BPA are significant endocrine disruptors.

You can find a guide to canned products rated for likelihood of containing BPA at this website.

You can also get your personal care products evaluated at the Environmental Working Groups Skin Deep Cosmetics Database at this site.

I want all my patients and readers to know that we now have the technology to measure the amount of pesticides, BPA, and heavy metals, and phthalates, in your body before you try to conceive.

Source Article

For many years now, I have encouraged my young female patients to go on a program under my guidance, to detoxify environmental chemicals, including phthalates and heavy metals before they conceive. I have now formalized this into what I call a Preconception Pregnancy Preparation Program. Many of my patients have gone through this program to help them have healthy babies.

For a long time now there has been shown to be a link between these environmental chemicals and neurological disorders that are epidemic now in children – autism spectrum disorder and ADHD.

Now a new study has just been published from Harvard University showing that “Women who live in areas with polluted air up to twice as likely to have an autistic child than those living in communities with cleaner air.” They looked at quite a few environmental airborne toxins including Mercury, diesel exhaust, lead, manganese, nickel and methylene chloride. 26 of the 180 pollutants had a significant association between exposure and autism rates.

Quite strikingly for Mercury and diesel, the mothers in the highest exposure group were TWICE as likely to have an autistic child.

Andrea Roberts, M.D. was the lead author of this study. She is quoted as saying “These things (pollutants) are neurotoxins and they can pass from the mother to the fetus while its still developing. And some of these chemicals can cause genetic mutations – the type associated with autism.”

Dr. Roberts said that her next research step would be to take blood samples from pregnant women or from babies to measure these pollutants.

My comment about this research is HOORAY! For years, environmental doctors have been telling their patients to avoid or minimize their environmental chemical exposures while pregnant. Now this article is bringing it to the forefront of everybody’s attention.

My patients, and probably my readers know I am especially concerned about the mercury that is coming from fish consumption into our bodies. This study, finding the highest link between mercury and autism, has overlooked the possible role of fish consumption by the woman during her pregnancy.

I advise all my patients not only clean up the Mercury before they conceive but to eat no fish while they are pregnant. Conventional medicine actually encourages pregnant women to eat low mercury fish so that they get the fish oils for the baby’s brain. This is such an easy problem to solve. All the woman has to do is take one or two fish oil pills a day which contain both EPA and DHA. Many prenatal vitamins now include the DHA that the baby requires for proper neurological development.

Integrative physicians have known the importance of DHA since the late 1990s. It has just been within the last year or two that prescription prenatal vitamins have started to add DHA.

To close this article I want to give a quote from Amy Kalkbrenner, MD, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. She was not involved in this study but has done an earlier similar study. She stated “It’s the exposures very early in life that we’re concerned about. So by the time they’re diagnosed, it’s too late.”

Please tell your friends who are pregnant to stop eating fish and take the fish oil pills instead. This will minimize their new mercury exposure during pregnancy itself.

More about this in next week’s issue!

References

Environmental Health News

Original Article

Previous Article with Same Findings

In the June 8 issue of the New York Times Opinion section, Paul A. Offit did a great disservice to its millions of readers, when he wrote an article entitled “Don’t Take Your Vitamins.”

He presented medical journal articles, about vitamins and specifically antioxidants, alleging that the studies show that vitamins do not help and indeed might be harmful.

The problem is that the studies he cites have major flaws that have been well documented.  The studies have been criticized for sub-optimal dosages, outdated formulations, and inadequate study duration. Indeed no integrative Dr. would give doses of a single antioxidant without a complement of other antioxidants to go with it.

In fact the Lewin Group estimated a $24 billion savings over five years if a few essential nutritional supplements were used consistently in the elderly. Literature reviews in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine also support this view.

My readers and patients know of my passion about vitamin D. The economic burden of vitamin D deficiency in the United States alone is estimated at $40 billion-$56 billion per year. It is estimated that if every American took 1000 IU of vitamin D per day that we would reduce the annual cost of cancer treatment by $16-$25 billion a year.

Several of my colleagues who have the time to review and write, have written excellent replies to the editor of the New York Times about this misleading articles . These replies do an excellent job of presenting the  flaws in, and the disservice done, to its readers by, this New  York Times article.

Here is a copy of a letter to the editor of the New York Times from the Institute of Functional Medicine, written for the Institute by both a prominent medical doctor and a very prominent naturopathic doctor.

Here is the letter:

June 12, 2013

To The Editor

Your article “Don’t Take Your Vitamins” (Opinion, June 8) puts readers at real risk by presenting an unbalanced, over- generalized perspective and selective attention to the body of evidence. First, the title gives a directive about the general category of vitamins, when the body of the article only addresses a subset of vitamins: anti-oxidants. Second, the article draws on studies with arguable design flaws (e.g., the Vitamin E used did not contain the full Vitamin E complex), when there are many vitamins and antioxidants whose benefits are supported by current research .Third, genomic science is proving that the best medicine is personalized. Yet the article cites population-based studies, which are known to be inadequate guides to individual care. Most importantly, should people with unique vitamin needs based on age, disease, medication, stress or genetics follow the advice of the article, harmful consequences are likely to develop.

Robert J. Hedaya, MD DFAPA, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC; Founder, National Center for Whole Psychiatry,

4701 Willard Avenue

Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815
Joseph Pizzorno, ND, Editor-in-Chief, Integrative Medicine, A Clinician’s Journal

4220 NE 135th St, Seattle, WA 98125.

In addition, an even more comprehensive and thorough critique of the New York Times article was written by my colleague Mark Hyman, M.D., who is the president of the Institute of Functional Medicine. His article is entitled “Why You Should Not Stop Taking Your Vitamins.” I urge you to read it.

You can read it HERE

In addition, HERE and HERE and HERE are more articles critiquing the studies that were referenced by Mr. Offit..

I urge you to discuss this with me or your integrative medicine doctor. I watch patients, with complaints that are not helped at all by conventional drugs, receive benefit every day by taking vitamins and nutraceuticals as part of  an integrative approach to their health care.

——————————

I only had time to write this one article this week. Next week I will be talking about important discoveries about environmental pollution, mercury, and autism.

When I wrote my vitamin D book 4 years ago, I said more detailed studies would be forthcoming showing the relationship of vitamin D deficiency to many health conditions.  One of these was hypertension. I also predicted that these future studies which show a cause-and-effect relationship between low vitamin D and these diseases.

Now a new study from from University College London, after looking at more than 150,000 individuals internationally, has confirmed a CAUSAL association between low levels of vitamin D and hypertension.

With every 10% increase in serum vitamin D concentrations, there was a significant decrease in diastolic blood pressure.

Please note that this study is not proving that low vitamin D is an exclusive cause of hypertension! Rather as Dominic Sica, M.D. of Virginia Commonwealth University said in an interview “What creates hypertension in a person is never something as simple as a low vitamin D level. It’s in the context of body weight, salt and water retention, sodium intake, potassium intake, things of a similar ilk but this is one area now that we have more assuredness that there is a relationship.” He of course was referring to the relationship of vitamin D as a cause for  hypertension.

If you have friends or family who are being treated for hypertension by a cardiologist or primary doctor, please urge them to get a vitamin D blood test and normalize it.